A protest against the Keystone XL pipeline / credit: John Englart, Creative Commons
After more than a decade of grassroots organizing, agitation and tireless opposition by the international climate movement, the final nail was slammed into the Keystone XL’s coffin Wednesday afternoon when the company behind the transnational tar sands pipeline officially pulled the plug on its plans.
Following consultation with Canadian officials and regulators—including “its partner, the Government of Alberta”—TC Energy confirmed its “termination” of the project in a statement citing the revocation of a federal U.S. permit by President Joe Biden on his first day in office on January 20 as the leading reason.
Climate campaigners, however, were immediate in claiming a final victory after years of struggle against the company and its backers both in Washington, D.C., and Ottawa.
“TC Energy just confirmed what we already knew but it’s a thrilling reality all the same—the Keystone XL pipeline is no more and never will be,” said David Turnbull, strategic communications director with Oil Change International (OCI).
OMG! It’s official. We took on a multi-billion dollar corporation and we won!!
— Dallas Goldtooth (@dallasgoldtooth) June 9, 2021
“After more than 10 years of organizing we have finally defeated an oil giant, Keystone XL is dead!” declared the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) in reaction. “We are dancing in our hearts because of this victory! From Dene territories in Northern Alberta to Indigenous lands along the Gulf of Mexico, we stood hand-in-hand to protect the next seven generations of life, the water and our communities from this dirty tar sands pipeline. And that struggle is vindicated.”
IEN said that the win over TC Energy and its supporters was “not the end—but merely the beginning of further victories,” and also reminded the world that there are “still frontline Indigenous water protectors like Oscar High Elk who face charges for standing against the Keystone XL pipeline.”
Calling the news “yet another huge moment in an historic effort,” Turnbull at OCI said that while the Canadian company’s press statement failed to admit it, “this project is finally being abandoned thanks to more than a decade of resistance from Indigenous communities, landowners, farmers, ranchers, and climate activists along its route and around the world.”
Jared Margolis, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, declared the victory in the drawn-out battle—which largely took place under the Democratic administration of former President Barack Obama—”a landmark moment in the fight against the climate crisis.”
“We need to keep moving away from dirty, dangerous pipelines that lock us into an unsustainable future,” added Margolis, who said he now hopes President Joe Biden will take this lesson and apply to other polluting fossil projects. “We’re hopeful that the Biden administration will continue to shift this country in the right direction by opposing fossil fuel projects that threaten our climate, our waters and imperiled wildlife,” he said. “Good riddance to Keystone XL!”
Jamie Henn and Bill McKibben, both co-founders of 350.org and key architects of the decision to make the Keystone XL pipeline a target and symbol of the global climate movement, also heralded the news.
“When this fight began, people thought Big Oil couldn’t be beat,” said McKibben, who was among those arrested outside the White House in 2011 protesting the pipeline.
“Keystone XL is now the most famous fossil fuel project killed by the climate movement, but it won’t be the last,” said Henn. “The same coalition that stopped this pipeline is now battling Line 3 and dozens of other fossil fuel projects across the country. Biden did the right thing on KXL, now it’s time to go a step further and say no to all new fossil fuel projects everywhere.”
Clayton Thomas Muller, another longtime KXL opponent and currently a senior campaigns specialist at 350.org in Canada, said: “This victory is thanks to Indigenous land defenders who fought the Keystone XL pipeline for over a decade. Indigenous-led resistance is critical in the fight against the climate crisis and we need to follow the lead of Indigenous peoples, particularly Indigenous women, who are leading this fight across the continent and around the world. With Keystone XL cancelled, it’s time to turn our attention to the Indigenous-led resistance to the Line 3 and the Trans Mountain tar sands pipelines.”
McKibben also made the direct connection to KXL and the decision now looming before Biden when it comes to Line 3 in northern Minnesota. “When enough people rise up we’re stronger even than the richest fossil fuel companies,” he said. “And by the way, the same climate test that ruled out Keystone should do the same for Line 3.”
Women in the Rhino Refugee Camp in Urua, Uganda. Developing countries have been relying on developed countries’ financing to help them adapt to and mitigate climate-change effects / credit: Ninno JackJr on Unsplash
With its climate pact and a climate law, the European Union is often viewed as progressive when it comes to dealing with the climate crisis. But positions that both EU countries and the EU bloc have taken in the run-up to the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26), the largest annual climate-change conference, paint a different picture.
At a workshop held in June, the EU proposed an end to discussions on long-term climate finance. The workshop was part of Sessions of the Subsidiary Bodies, a set of meetings under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
“The [work] program was to come to an end in 2020, not the agenda item of long-term finance,” said Zaheer Fakir, one of the lead coordinators for the African Group of Negotiators on Climate Change (AGN). Fakir, of South Africa, co-facilitated the workshop. “But developed countries in the EU and the U.S. are reluctant to continue these discussions,” he added.
The work program on long-term finance was first launched at COP17 in 2011. As part of the program, parties decided on a host of actions, such as the sessions and convening biannually to continue dialogues on climate finance until 2020.
At the workshop, many developing countries—African ones in particular—opposed the EU proposal as a violation of the Paris Agreement’s principles of equity. Representatives from the small African country of Gabon stressed the need to continue discussions on long-term finance given how the goal of mobilizing $100 billion per year by 2020 remains unmet.
Climate finance is considered a key tool to help developing countries adapt to a changing climate by developing coastal defense mechanisms or drought-resistant crops. This funding also helps countries take action to mitigate the effects, such as by scaling up the renewable energy sector. And as Toward Freedom previously reported, developed countries are falling short in fulfilling their financial obligations and sometimes are adding to the debt burdens of developing countries.
Fakir said these discussions on long-term finance are the “only real, substantial financial discussions under the Convention [UNFCCC].” He also added the work program was one of a kind because it included a variety of stakeholders, like parties to UNFCCC and development banks.
“Discussions on long-term finance cannot be shut down as long as developing countries are required to implement climate actions to achieve Paris Agreement goals,” said Meena Raman, a Malaysia-based legal advisor and senior researcher at the Third World Network (TWN), a nonprofit international research and advocacy organization focusing on Global North-South affairs.
Discussions on long-term climate finance are set to be held during COP26. Meanwhile, the EU, the COP26 presidency and the UNFCCC have not responded to questions.
African Group of Negotiators Lead Coordinators Strategy meeting, African Roadmap for Climate Action, held in March 2020 in Libreville, Gabon. African countries have rejected the EU’s proposal to end discussions on long-term climate financing.
A Showdown Over Net-Zero Terms
In the first week of October, a dispute broke out at the 30th meeting of the board members of the Green Climate Fund (GCF). GCF was established in 2010 as a financing vehicle that would help developing countries address climate-change needs.
The re-accreditation of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) to the GCF fell through because GCF board member Lars Roth required the DBSA accept net-zero targets, according to TWN’s account of the meeting. Roth is affiliated with the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
Green Climate Fund board member Lars Roth, who the Third World Network reports was trying to prevent an African bank’s re-accreditation by demanding more stringent climate terms. Roth said the group simply ran out of time to re-accredit the bank.
“Institutions like DBSA are key to the southern African region in terms of implementing their NDCs [nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement],” Fakir said.
However, TWN reported Roth tried to impose conditions on GCF members like a long-term net-zero target by the year 2050, an intermediate net-zero target for 2030, as well as shifts in overall investment and loan policies away from fossil fuels.
Board members from developing countries objected to these conditions.
Roth told this reporter the main reason DBSA was not re-accredited is the GCF board wasted time on “procedural discussions.” The bank’s re-accreditation was the final item on the meeting’s agenda. “We ran out of time to iron out remaining differences,” Roth said.
But Roth wanted the DBSA re-accreditation to be postponed irrespective of the substance of the discussions, said AGN advisor Richard Sherman. He added Roth’s was a deliberate move to put pressure on the DBSA to make a public statement regarding net zero and fossil-fuel investments.
Sherman also added the GCF board’s policy for accreditation and re-accreditation does not include any provisions “beyond an expectation that the portfolio of the entity would evolve and it does not provide any guidance on how to measure such a shift.” In essence, the provisions do not require net-zero commitments and fossil-fuel phaseouts.
The GCF did not respond to whether net-zero commitments are necessary for accreditation purposes.
This issue also shines light on the heart of the problem. That developing countries are expected to show greater ambition on climate action, while not being provided with the support to execute.
Article 2 of the Paris Agreement speaks of “equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances.” This means each country is required to take action aligned with its historical responsibilities and current capabilities. The entire African continent has contributed only 3 percent to cumulative emissions since the Industrial Revolution, as opposed to the EU, which has contributed 22 percent.
The proposal to not re-accredit DBSA could be considered discrimination and therefore not in line with the Paris Agreement. The other issue is banks like DBSA that finance projects in developing countries are core to both their general infrastructure needs as well as a just transition away from fossil fuels.
“One of the key achievements of developing countries in the GCF process was having direct access modality,” Fakir explained. Here, “direct access modality” refers to the possibility of national and regional institutions (institutions other than the UN and World Bank) to be accredited to the GCF to act as vehicles to finance climate-related projects across developing countries. DBSA is one such institution. Therefore, the decision to not re-accredit the bank will impact a pipeline of projects across southern Africa.
“How will these countries transition [into clean-energy economies]?” Fakir asked.
Morocco’s Noor Midelt solar power project, which Germany primarily funded / NS Energy
Lack of Finance Becomes a Barrier In Africa
All of the above detailed issues played out in the context of grave climate-driven disasters across Africa and increasing adaptation costs, which would require more GCF financing than ever before.
A new paper points to how climate finance from developed countries is heavily skewed towards mitigation despite Africa’s climate adaptation costs totalling around $7 to 15 (USD) billion per year and rising. Yet, the paper states that finance targeting mitigation was almost double that for adaptation.
The paper also highlights only 46 percent of financial commitments toward climate-adaptation measures are distributed. “If you want to have an impact on the ground, funding has to reach the communities on the ground,” said Georgia Savvidou, a researcher at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and the paper’s lead author.
The fund flows also are not in line with the Paris Agreement, which states countries should balance climate finance between mitigation and adaptation. Early this year even the UNSG stated 50 percent of climate finance should be towards adaptation.
“Around 60 percent of GCF financing, if not more, is directed towards mitigation,” Fakir noted. This despite GCF’s mandate to invest 50 percent of its resources to mitigation and 50 percent to adaptation. And even within such allocation, the fund is mandated to invest at least half of its adaptation resources in the most climate vulnerable countries like African states and least developed countries.
The paper also points to how the disproportionate mitigation financing is linked to European funding sources. In northern Africa, where 83 percent of finance commitments were directed to mitigation, around 65 percent of such funding originated from European donors, which includes two banks and the countries of France and Germany.
The authors suggest self-interest drives such financing:
“One mega-project in Morocco financed primarily by Germany accounts for 26 percent of the region’s total mitigation finance: The Noor Midelt Solar Power Project is one of the world’s largest solar projects to combine hybrid concentrated solar power and photovoltaic solar. Morocco’s proximity to Europe means it could potentially export significant amounts of renewable power northwards, and in doing so help Europe to achieve its climate neutrality targets.”
To de-link donor interest in bilateral climate funding, the authors suggest direct access modalities like Adaptation Fund and GCF as one option. “These funds are better at reaching the most vulnerable countries,” Savvidou said. But, as laid out above, the integrity of GCF processes remains in question.
Rishika Pardikar is a freelance journalist in Bangalore, India.
Editor’s Note:This article, originally published by Unbias the News, is part of the Sinking Cities Project, which covers six cities’ responses to sea-level rise. The investigation was developed with the support of Journalismfund.eu, European Cultural Foundation and the German Postcode Lottery.
It is the middle of July 2022. The downpour has been going on for four days with no signs of abating anytime soon. Cars are submerging into gaping canals. People are getting swept off the road and seven have died. Several houses are flooded.
The scenes are not uncommon during the rainy season for people living in Lagos, Nigeria; they were expected with millions of people living in densely populated suburbs without proper water channels.
Babatunde Noah, a cleric in his 30s, lives in a tenement bungalow on Odunfa street in Bariga, a low-income suburb in Lagos adjoining the Lagos lagoon. The rain has subsided that Tuesday morning, a slight relief. He is hoping it stops totally so that the single room he shares with his wife and only child can stop flooding. He is one of those who have not temporarily vacated their house in the community.
“I moved away from my former house because of the same problem,” Noah told Unbias The News. “In my former place, you dare not be away from home when it is raining. You will come back to see your room full of water.”
Noah said in the old and new places he has lived, every year, people mitigated the impact of the annual flood by cementing areas around the house and raising fences. But since 2018, when the Lagos state government under Akinwunmu Ambode filled Oworonshoki wetlands with sand, manufacturing an estimated 40 hectares (98 acres) of land to build a jetty terminal, the annual flood has defied this makeshift solution.
The National Emergency Management Agency says at least 8 million residents in Lagos are prone to flood disasters with 12 percent of the state subject to seasonal flooding, according to Lagos’ 2021 Climate Risk Assessment.
At the core of the problem is a clash of long overdue urban development and protection of natural ecosystems, a sprawling real estate industry, and a government unwilling to confront climate realities.
As the state’s population increases annually with thousands of people coming into the city every day, space becomes scarcer and the government’s idea of development, experts say, is infrastructure-centered.
‘Heading Towards a Catastrophe’
Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital, is a low-lying coastal city and is just one meter above sea level. Its coastline accounts for 180 kilometers (111 miles) out of Nigeria’s total 850 kilometers (528 miles) stretch, positioning it as an important coastal economy. Forty percent of the state is covered by water bodies and wetlands.
Lagos has grown from a tiny settlement of 28,000 people in the 19th century to a landmass of 3,345 km2 (2,078 square miles) with over 22 million people.
The expansion in size started with the British colonial government’s decision to transform Lagos into an industrialized trade centre in the 19th and 20th centuries to serve colonial interests. As a result, British colonizers made the first to foray into Lagos’ natural ecosystem to create residential estates and highbrow business districts. In a trend that has not diminished many decades after, thanks to an ever-increasing population and scarcity of space, successive Lagos state governments have continued to turn to the waterbody for land.
Lagos during colonial times / credit: National Archives of the United Kingdom
Lagos during colonial times / credit: National Archives of the United Kingdom
Experts and analysts say this portends danger as the city prepares–or not–for the projected sea level rise. The sea level rise is expected by two meters at the end of the century, putting Lagos, with its low topography, at the risk of completely sinking.
“We are heading towards a catastrophe,” Toyin Oshaniwa, the founder of Nature Cares Resource Centre, told Unbias The News.
“The question we should ask ourselves is: Are we really prepared for the greater risks that are coming? There is nothing we can do about it; as long we are here there is going to be flooding either from the coast shoreline or the rains that fall.”
As Lagos floods every rainy season, attention heightens around the city’s plan to tackle the challenge. Experts say the floods result from a lack of drainage services, vanishing green areas, an unorganized waste delivery system, and most importantly, vastly depleted wetlands.
“Lagos has not been properly planned to cater to its environmental component… The environmental challenges of Lagos seem too much to manage” Seyifunmi Adebote, an Abuja-based environmentalist said.
The population of Lagos residents is projected at over 32 million by 2050 and over 88 million by the end of the century, according to the Global Cities Institute at the University of Toronto, which would make it the world’s most populated city.
With an already limited space, environmental experts say they fear the urban population pressure would have grave consequences for the wetlands and the ecosystem.
“Looking at Lagos as it is today, it is inconceivable that 40 million people can be accommodated by 2050,” Adebote said. “With the horizontal infrastructural investments, every bit of environmental sanctuary will be ripped off. Personally, I believe 2050 is even too far to use as a yardstick for the urgency of action Lagos state needs to take to respond to its fast-degrading environmental status.”
Wetlands Sold Off to the Highest Bidder
According to experts, Lagos is one of the cities which will be most affected by the sea-level rise which will now be expected to inevitably rise by a minimum of 27 centimeters (10.6 inches) as a result of the melting Greenland ice cap, projected to bring 110 trillion tons of ice into the sea. As global temperature rises as a result of the sustained burning of fossil fuel, glacial ice, iceberg and ice shelves are melting away.
Pristine wetlands, environmentalists say, will help Lagos mitigate some of the now-inevitable consequences of global warming. But the wetlands are at the risk of extinction in time for the projected timeframe for sea-level rise.
No one knows the exact numbers of wetlands left or the rate at which they have been encroached by developers, not even the government itself, but the consensus among experts and the government is that half of them are gone.
Wetlands are critical to the ecosystem as they serve various functions ranging from being home to biodiversity, recharging underground water, controlling shoreline erosion and preventing flooding. These wetlands can contain rain and store them for underground recharge. As wetlands diminish in Lagos and the intensity of rain increases due to climate change, the natural ‘’sponge’’ retaining water is no longer in sight.
But the roots of the problem date back to the 1970s when the United Nations organized a multilateral framework to protect wetlands. The convention recognizes 11 wetlands in Nigeria, brought under international protection, excluding Lagos.
The government of the day did not provide the documents for Lagos; until today, the Ramsar List does not recognize Lagos’ wetlands.
“I believe it is one of the reasons they are not really protected,” Oshaniwa said.
In 2016, the state government drafted a policy to protect the wetlands. The draft policy recognized 31 wetlands and was reviewed in 2017 at a stakeholder’s meeting.
The policy has not been made law to date. Later on, according to Tolulope Adeyo, the director of the Department of Conservation and Ecology in the state’s Ministry of the Environment, the agency outsourced the surveying to a private company because the draft policy was not “comprehensive.”
In the meantime, Adeyo told Unbias The News that the department has embarked on advocacy programs across the state and constituted a monitoring team to ensure that the locals do not encroach on wetlands.
“People are looking at the economic worth of these wetlands and not the environmental importance,’’ Adeyo said, adding that they have had to enforce stoppage of constructions and seizure of property.
Some civil society organizations say that the government grants permits to real estate developers to provide exclusive highbrow residential areas and use them to build public infrastructure, bringing billions of naira in internall generated revenue to the state coffers.
The Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development–corroborated by two other sources within the Ministry of the Environment who requested not to remain anonymous for fear of punishment–is responsible for allocating wetlands to real estate developers.
“The Ministry of Environment seems to be interested,” Olamide Udomo-Ejorh, director of Lagos Urban Initiative Development, a non-governmental organization campaigning for the protection of wetlands told Unbias The News. ‘’When we went for meetings they said wetland protection is something they really want to look into, however, the Ministry of Physical Planning is still giving it out to be built upon.’’
“That inter-agency lack of synergy is a challenge,” Oshaniwa, who is an expert regularly consulted by the Ministry of Environment and has worked with the ministry for more than a decade, also said of the issue. “There is a lack of that long-term planning and [we have] this policy somersaulting, everybody comes with one thing [or another].”
Adeyo declined to speak on the matter, but an NGO working closely with the Lagos government that does not want a mention in this story confirmed to Unbias The News.
The ministry of physical planning and urban development did not respond to requests for comment on the lack of inter-agency cooperation.
A Lack of Political Will
Lagos state is a member of C40 Cities, a global network of governors and mayors working together to adapt their cities to the impacts of climate change, tailored to achieve the Paris Agreement and committing to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. In collaboration with C40, the Lagos state government has developed a Climate Action Plan, which outlines plans for the state to achieve its climate goals. The second installment, which runs from 2020-25, does not include a plan for wetlands protection, nor is a mention of wetland protection in the Lagos Environmental Management Law 2017 (as amended).
When asked if it is possible to restore the reclaimed wetlands and stop further encroachment, Maximus Ugwuoke, the Lagos city advisor for C40, puts it to “political will.”
‘’It depends on the political commitment of the government in power,” Ugwuoke said. “The way I see it is that if care is not taken, the masses are going to the streets if we don’t start taking action about wetlands. People have reclaimed wetlands and water is entering people’s homes.’’
As in most cases with environmental issues, the diminishment of wetlands is not a topic on the front burner. It remains a topic mostly examined in conferences, stakeholder meetings and seminars and the general population does not have the full scope of the damage already carried out, both by the government, which rather places economics above the environment and people trying to find a place to live in the city.
Unbias The News examined some critical wetlands in Lagos using satellite imageries and the extent to which they have been encroached on in the past decades.
The wetlands investigated by Unbias The News are Omu Creek wetlands, Akoka wetlands, Ajah wetlands, Ikorodu South wetlands, Badagry Creek and Lekki Conservation wetlands. The years vary but we were able to trace the progression of depletion in the past two decades.
Satellite investigation reveals that Omu Creek, located in Eti Osa local government bordering the Lagos lagoon and the Atlantic Ocean, is home to the tropical Mangrove swamp wetlands vegetation (common in the Southern part of Nigeria) that showed uncommon resilience over the decades. Between 2002 and 2005, the creek’s most flourishing years in the century as evidenced by multiple satellite data, over 80 percent of its natural marshland floors were intact.
However, in the 2010s, as communities started to grow around the creek the wetlands began to diminish. Satellite images below show the gradual expansion of development. By 2021, 37 percent of the wetlands have been lost.
Similarly, other remaining major wetlands have diminished. Wetlands in Akoka, a suburb of Yaba, a community seen as the social transition between Lagos Mainland and Lagos Island, have diminished by 19 percent between 2013 and 2022. In Ajah, an affluent area of Lagos Island, the wetlands diminished by 19 percent between 2012 and 2021. The wetlands in Ikorodu South, located in the northeast part of the state and sharing boundary with Ogun state, did the same number between 2011 and 2022.
Wetlands in the Badagry Creeks, a border coastal town which was used for the trans-Atlantic slave trade, diminished by 29 percent between 2013 and 2021. The most alarming instance is Lekki Conservation Centre wetlands which diminished by 42 percent between 2011 and last year.
‘Like a Tsunami’
Adewunmi Ishola, a roadside food seller who retails cooked staple foods like rice and beans, had lived in Itodun town, a coastal community at Ibeju Lekki, with her three children for years. The house in which she was living, just like Noah’s, was a tenement house, typical for low-income earners in Lagos, where many families share the same facilities like a kitchen and toilets.
Several houses separated the building, a plantation of coconut trees that stretched some meters, which was a cynosure for foreign tourists and local beach lovers and then a beach on the Atlantic Ocean.
But the coast is eroding, and as the community kept a months-long vigil over their houses, it was only a countdown. The beach gradually wore away, the whole coconut plantation. As seen by Unbias The News satellite images, the coastline in Itodun eroded by 48 meters (157 feet) between 2020 and 2021 alone.
Since 2020, a forceful surge has been threatening the community. By August 2021, it got to the houses. One midnight in that fateful month, it washed some houses away as Ishola, and her children awoke to screams and rumbles of people trying to salvage their property. By morning, houses were gone, livelihoods drowned, and decades-long corpses of buried people resurfaced.
“I watched the Tsunami, it was just like that,” Ishola narrated, referencing a once viral CGI-animated end-of-time ocean surge that washed off an entire city. ‘’I was so scared, people were all screaming. Nobody affected could get a thing out,” she recounted.
In a blink of an eye, not unexpected, hundreds of people are robbed of homes and life savings. ‘’This place is not where someone should live… It is the economic situation. It is too close to the ocean,’’ Ishola berated.
‘’It is loans we survive on. A year’s journey has been turned into a decade, even in a decade, I can only hope to God we get there,’’ she said when asked how they are recovering from their losses.
Lagos’ shoreline has battled erosion for decades, and the acceleration, which has alarmed experts and environmentalists, is driven by climate change and human activities. Lagos’ coastline is also the site of some of the state’s most ambitious infrastructures, hoping to position the city as a major global economic force.
But as these developments continue, low-income coastal communities are already feeling the impacts. In Ibeju Lekki, a well-too-known portrait of Lagos is rapidly shaping up – urban development coming at the expense of the urban poor. As erosion eats deeper into their communities, thousands of livelihoods and ancestries will be displaced within an already congested city, pushing them off the map.
Deflecting the Problem
Idotun is one of the numerous clusters of communities in Ibeju Lekki and has been there for centuries. The Lekki Free Trade Zone—a 16,500 hectares (40,772 acres) area with a coast border of about 50 kilometers (31 miles)—was created in 2006. Given its GDP and growth prospects, Lagos is conceived to be West Africa’s principal economic hub. It includes, among several other companies, a refinery by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote and a new $1.5 billion port, Nigeria’s deepest.
The ongoing construction of the port has created conditions for erosion by redirecting stronger waves towards the community’s portion of the coast. To protect the port, barriers have been erected to withstand surges and make it formidable against erosion, much like the famous ‘’Great Wall of Lagos,” an 8.5 kilometer (5.28 mile) wall covering Eko Atlantic, an upscale artificial city built on reclaimed land on the Atlantic Ocean at Victoria Island.
The protective walls deflect the wave downstream, experts say.
“It is alarming,” Dr Olusegun Adeaga, a lecturer in the Department of Geography at the University of Lagos said of the rate of erosion on Lagos coastline. ”There will be deposits somewhere and there will be erosion in other places. [Ocean waves] will deflect back and erosion is the implication. Unless those natural barriers [wetlands and mangroves] are back or you mimic nature to believe those structures are there. If not, as you save one, you lose one.’’
Lekki Free Trade Zone Development and Eko Atlantic did not respond to requests for comments. Nor did the Federal Government, the principals of these projects.
Coastline Erosion at Alpha Beach and Idotun
Unbias The News examines erosion at the coastline in two communities with the most extensive coastline development.
As shown in the satellite images below, the coastlines of Idotun and Alpha Beach communities have receded heavily in the past five years. The Idotun coastline has eroded by at least 80 meters (262 feet) in less than five years, wiping off hundreds of houses and other structures. Within 2018 and 2020, it extended inland by 48 meters (157 feet) and between 2020 and the following, 32 meters (104 feet) were recovered through the massive sand filling. which residents told Unbias the News most of it has been lost again due to erosion. Investigation shows that most of the erosion happened in the last five years, coinciding with the most extensive development of the port.
Also, Alpha Beach has eroded 87 meters (285 feet) between 2016 and 2022 and destroyed at least 120 coast buildings and structures according to satellite investigation since 2017 and displacing hundreds of low-income families.
Satellites showed significant advances between February 2018 and December 2018, an 11-month period with a record of about 60 structures loss due to water-induced soil degradation, and by 2021, the number had doubled.
Some developments sprang up laterally on the flanks, where residents away from the coast to develop lands adjacent to the advancing water, seemingly buying more time before the land was taken over by the rapidly advancing coastal boundary.
With an eroding coast, now an inevitable sea level rise and continued loss of wetlands which studies say in normal circumstances can keep up with the rise in sea level but due to climate change and the expected high-level rise, Lagos has become extremely vulnerable.
The National Emergency Management Agency, the agency responsible for managing disasters in Nigeria and which will be responsible for managing possible outcomes of devastating flooding, said it cannot predict the future but has a stockpile of relief materials for two weeks in the case of any eventuality.
‘’Every time, the situation is dynamic and based on needs,’’ Farinloye Ibrahim, the Coordinator for Lagos Territorial Office for the agency said. “We have two weeks’ stock of relief materials depending on the local government.”
Already, more than 600 people have been killed and 1.4 million others displaced this year alone as a result of flooding in almost half of the country which was sparked by heavy rainfalls and lack of critical infrastructure and it remains to be seen the true capacity of the agency as hundreds of thousands of people more are displaced.
The 2.3 million people affected in Nigeria by the ongoing flood will disagree with the availability of relief material.
Requests for comment from the government were received, but not responded to.
A letter sent to ministries was returned with a stamp verifying receipt.
‘A Real Life Issue’
As the world prepares for a rise in sea level which will facilitate increased coastal flooding, Lagos state government’s increased vigor for developments and licensing of exclusive real estate at the expense of environmental concerns is a source of great worry to analysts.
Lagos has become one of the most expensive real estate markets on the continent thanks to its increasing commercial values and expanding multi-billion dollar GDP but the growth is papering over the cracks. As the economy expands and luxury estates rise, the foundation weakens and is ready to sink.
In its 2021 climate risk assessment, the Lagos state government acknowledges that 12.9 million residents are vulnerable to climate impacts, representing almost half of the current population and more would be affected as population increases.
Besides the possible loss of lives, an estimated $4 billion are lost to flooding every year, which is 4.1 percent of the state’s gross domestic product. In August 2022, the state governor pledged a 20 billion naira Green Fund Initiative to tackle the impact of climate change.
The biggest hurdle, civil society is saying, is the government and policymakers.
‘’For the policymakers in Lagos, I think for them [the issue of climate change] is still an academic exercise. Let’s do a resilience strategy, they do it. Let’s do a surge prevention study, they do it. Let’s do a Climate Action Plan, they do it. They are not seen as a real-life issues.’
“The coming election, that is the same promise they will make to us. They will say they will do the road and channel the gutters but that is their promise every year. We are tired but we don’t have any other option. We don’t have any other place to go. If we are to get an apartment where water does not disturb us, it is quite expensive,” Babatunde said.
People like Adewunmi and Babatunde do not have knowledge of the science changing around them and there is barely anything they can do. But they are on the frontline of a dangerously metamorphosing city.
Mansir Muhammed contributed satellite image analysis for this story.
Ope Adetayo is a freelance journalist based in Lagos, Nigeria. His works have appeared in Al Jazeera, The Guardian UK, Foreign Policy, Vice, The Africa Report and African Arguments, among several others.
A demonstration in March 2022 against Canada-based mining company Libero Copper and Gold in Mocoa, the capital of the Putumayo department in Colombia. The banner reads, “Mocoa says no to megamineria. Water is worth more than copper.” The march initiated a four-day event called the Festival in Defense of the Mountain, Water and Life, held to protest the company’s copper mining project / credit: Antonio Cascio
MOCOA, Colombia—“We are experiencing a profound crisis, not only in the Amazon, but throughout [the world],” said Campo Elías de la Cruz, a Catholic priest and environmental activist. “Over three centuries, the umbilical cord of Mother Earth has been cut.”
De la Cruz, who opposes the extraction of minerals in Colombia’s Putumayo Department, referred to thousands of rubber trees that had been cut down, along with 70,000 Indigenous people who died in the western Amazon during the extraction of rubber, timber, oil and quinine (a substance used to prevent malaria). “And today,” de la Cruz told Toward Freedom, “in the 21st century, they tell us they are taking the copper from Mother Earth.” The priest remarked on contemporary plans to explore and mine for copper and molybdenum to feed “clean energy” technologies in what could be one of the largest deposits of these minerals on the continent and in the world.
An Andean Saddle-Back Tamarin monkey (Leontocebus fuscicollis) in the Mocoa area. The biodiverse Putumayo department is home to more than 150 animal species, which is why environmentalist groups worry about mining activities / credit: Antonio Cascio
In this richly biodiverse region, where the cool mountains of the Andes meet the steamy Amazon rainforest, opinions are divided and emotions fume over the environmental and social costs of housing a “green” mining project. It is here where the Caquetá and Putumayo rivers originate, both major tributaries of the Amazon River. Any alteration of the natural state of this area is likely to impact the entire Amazon rainforest, often referred to as the “lungs” of the Earth, for absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing life-giving oxygen into the atmosphere.
All this is why a Canadian mining company appearing to move forward on exploring mining possibilities in Putumayo has raised questions about a progressive government that won power by promising environmental protection.
Mocoa city, capital of Putumayo. Its geographic position puts it at high risk of natural disasters. In 2017, for example, a landslide destroyed part of the city and caused more than 300 deaths. For this reason, residents are concerned about mining activities in the mountains that surround Mocoa / credit: Antonio Cascio
‘Clean Energy’ Promises
In 2018, the Canadian multinational company Libero Copper and Gold acquired four mining titles to explore and extract minerals, such as copper and molybdenum, in more than 11,000 hectares (27,000 acres) in Mocoa, the capital of the department of Putumayo in southern Colombia.
The proposal to extract copper and molybdenum has been framed by proponents as a “green” project that can help transition Colombia to using renewable energy and replace polluting fossil fuels, the use of which has been found to cause climate change. This proposal aligns with the policy of the progressive government of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who took power last year. During his campaign, he vowed to stop issuing oil and gas exploration licenses and has recently advocated for the exploration of crucial minerals in the country to develop renewable energy as a climate change solution.
Map of Colombian city of Mocoa and Mocoa River in Putumayo department / source: Google
Libero Copper and Gold has gained support among locals—most of whom work with the company—because of the jobs and development it promises for a region that lacks access to basic services such as an adequate health system and a reliable water supply. However, the region’s history with oil extraction produced no benefits for the people, either, according to José Luis Lopez, a researcher at the Observatory of Environmental Conflicts at the National University of Colombia, in an interview with Toward Freedom.
A stone that contains copper found in the Tosoy stream, close to the mining project area. Locals say no fish live in this stream because of the high levels of water mineralization. Humans do not consume the water, either. To them, this shows how mining could lead to the contamination of water, affecting human settlements and biodiversity / credit: Antonio Cascio
“Currently, 46 percent of the economy of Putumayo depends on oil exploitation. Yet, between 2008 and 2016, formal employment only reached 26 percent,” Lopez said, citing a study carried out by Fedesarrollo for Ecopetrol, the largest oil company in the country.
In an effort to show how “green” this project is, Libero Copper and Gold created an alliance with the National University of Colombia in Medellin as part of their “Green Route” strategy. This alliance aims to create the first copper production chain in the country for the development of electric motors and generators. However, Congress members denounced the project because of conflicts of interests that led Vice-Minister of Mines and Energy Giovanny Franco Sepulveda to resign early this year.
According to Lopez, Libero Copper and Gold’s discourse lacks consistency. “First, they told us this could be the biggest mine in the world. Later, they focused on a strategy based on social responsibility and environmental sustainability. And, now, they present a plan to extract copper in small quantities.”
Libero Copper and Gold reported the reserves contain 4.6 billion pounds (2 million tons) of copper and 510.5 million pounds (232 kilotons) of molybdenum, exceeding the amount contained in the biggest mines in the world.
The Nasa Indigenous Guards and other participants at the Festival in Defense of the Mountain, Water and Life. The Indigenous Guards said they found evidence that Libero Copper and Gold was drilling with suspended mining titles. They also accused the Canadian company of illegal activities that have caused environmental damage / credit: Antonio Cascio
Beyond the environmental consequences, local people also worry this mining project could cause an environmental disaster similar to the one that took place in Mocoa in 2017, when intense rain led to a mudslide that caused the deaths of more than 300 people. Although the 2017 disaster was linked to the movement of Earth in a different area to where Libero Copper operates, geologists have confirmed that the mountain where the mining titles are located also contain highly fractured rocks and, therefore, are more susceptible to landslides.
“Energy transition should not under any circumstances put at risk the water supply of such an important region,” Lopez said. “If we affect the area where the water originates, and you also take into account the production of heavy metal residues, we are putting at risk communities whose survival depends on the rivers.”
Colombian Vice President Francia Márquez (right) and President Gustavo Petro (left, on mic) at a June 7 demonstration in favor of government reforms / credit: Antonio Cascio
Does Clean Energy Protect the Environment and Indigenous Territories?
In April, Petro opened his speech in front of the Organization of American States (OAS) by talking about Latin America’s strategic importance in producing critical minerals for the “clean energy” transition. According to the International Energy Agency, the area from Mexico in the north to Chile in the south accounts for 40 percent of global copper production and 35 percent of the world’s lithium. Yet, the reserves remain underdeveloped, which for some means a great potential exists to increase production––not only of these two materials––but also of others essential to the transition away from fossil fuels. Those can include nickel and rare earth elements, among others.
Despite a growing consensus on the importance of reducing carbon emissions, questions have arisen over who should bear the environmental and social costs of extracting resources essential to this transition. Indigenous and peasant communities in Colombia worry copper mining will affect their livelihoods and even force them to abandon their territories.
“I feel so much pain to see that a company like Libero Copper and Gold is coming to destroy the most precious thing we have, water,” said Rufina Valencia, an elderly peasant woman who arrived in the village––where Libero Copper and Gold operates––when she was a child. It was this land that helped her and her husband, who worked in the water company, raise their kids, she said. “[Water] is the heart of our community, our Putumayo region, and the world. Because Putumayo is the lung of the world.”
Aerial view of the Putumayo department, called the door of the Amazon / credit: Antonio Cascio
Petro’s victory during last year’s presidential elections was due to the overwhelming support of Indigenous and peasant communities, who saw Petro and Vice President Francia Márquez as allies in their struggle to defend land rights and protect their territories. This support, however, could come under scrutiny if mining interferes with their way of life.
“In different parts of the country, it has been proven how mining results in a loss of sovereignty over the lands of communities and loss over food sovereignty, as people abandoned agricultural practices to work in the mines,” explained Carlos Duarte, Coordinator of Rural Development and Land-Use Planning at Javeriana University in the capital of Bogotá, in an interview with Toward Freedom.
In this sense, Petro’s government could find itself in a tough spot as his plans to increase Colombia’s share in critical materials for a transition away from fossil fuels and toward a more independent Colombia could eclipse the interests of Indigenous and peasant communities.
Taita Pablo Crispín Chindoy held a spiritual ceremony at the end of a meeting in March in Mocoa with Colombian Minister of Mines and Energy Irene Vélez Torres. Indigenous communities, and social and activist groups, from the Putumayo department organized this meeting to provide the minister with their case for requesting the end of the Libero Copper and Gold project in the Mocoa area / credit: Antonio Cascio
Controversy Within the Government
So far, neither Petro nor Márquez have released a public statement about the copper and molybdenum mining project in Mocoa.
Although Márquez does not have political functions related to the mining sector, she is expected to be vocal on mining issues, explains Duarte. “Márquez has stated during her campaign––and as Vice President––her conviction that mining, as it is currently implemented, is not feasible,” he said. Toward Freedom contacted Márquez’s office, requesting a statement on this matter, but did not receive a response. “She has been part of this struggle her whole life and will probably not disassociate from this matter,” Duarte added.
However, the neoliberal extractivist policies implemented by governments of the first left-wing wave that engaged a socio-ecological discourse ––as was the case of Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa ––show how these contradictory approaches have coexisted in the region.
According to Duarte, the Petro-Márquez government’s efforts to conserve the environment are obvious with the signing of the Escazú Agreement that aims to protect the environment and the lives of environmental activists. Although the agreement was signed in 2018, it was only until late last year that Colombia ratified it. The question remains of how the pair will move on the mining question. “Will they favor environmental protection or will they take an extractivist approach to satisfy the global demand for these resources?” Duarte asked.
Close to the Libero Copper and Gold mining project, three important rivers pass through the area, the Mocoa (seen here), the Caquetá and the Putumayo rivers. All are tributaries of the Amazon River, so contamination of their waters would affect the entire Amazon region / credit: Antonio Cascio
For now, the Colombian government is revising the existing mining code—which many hope will toughen regulations and protect the environment. The Petro-Márquez administration has approved the National Development Plan 2022-26, in which the protection of water is one of the three central elements of territorial planning and its development strategy. A fact that Lopez also associates with the government’s willingness to protect the environment.
“The energy transition has an enormous demand for strategic minerals. At the global level, that means extraction frontiers are under pressure,” said Minister of Mines and Energy Irene Vélez when visiting Indigenous and local communities in March in Mocoa. “But this government is not going to generate a copper rush that will leave social and environmental destruction.”
On various occasions, the National Mining Agency (or ANM in Spanish) has stated that the company cannot conduct any exploration or exploitation activities due to the 020 Regional Accord prohibiting medium and large-scale mining in Mocoa. However, the company has violated this accord by carrying out exploration activities. Such violations are verifiable on the company’s website, where they report on their activities. On this matter, the ANM is conducting an investigation but so far has not presented its findings.
In response to Toward Freedom‘s inquiry regarding the investigation, the agency said the process is still underway. However, this exceeds the time limit set forth in Article 288 of the Mining Code.
For now, Libero Copper and Gold continues operating in the territory and the people refuse to relent.
“I will not sell my land because I don’t want future generations to say they were left in a desert, impossible to survive because of my decision,” said Valencia, who has lived in Putumayo since childhood. “But if that project continues, we worry we will be forced to sell when the water is contaminated.”
The video above was first published by Mongabay.
Natalia Torres Garzón graduated with an M.Sc. in Globalization and Development at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, United Kingdom. She is a freelance journalist who focuses on social and political issues in Latin America, especially in connection to Indigenous communities, women, and the environment. Her work has been published in Earth Island, New Internationalist, Toward Freedom, the section of Planeta Futuro-El País, El Salto, Esglobal and others.
Antonio Cascio is an Italian photojournalist focused on social movements, environmental justice and discriminated groups. He has been working as a freelancer from Europe and Latin America. He has also collaborated with news agencies like Reuters, Sopa Images and Abacapress, and his pictures have been published in the New York Times, CNN, BBC, the Guardian, DW, Mongabay, El País, Revista 5W, Liberation, Infobae, Folha de S.Paulo, Amnesty International and others.
